5 Apps That can Help With Stress Relief

Stress. Dealing with it can be difficult, and it also feel very overwhelming when you’re trying to balance work and family, or even if work alone is stressful. So what can one do? While there are a lot of exercises or activities that one can try out to relieve stress, sometimes it’s easier to do it at the moment, and god knows you can’t just get up and do push ups while you’re at work. However, in this digital age, why not try a solution that mixes technology and traditional methods of stress relief? Here our top 5 picks for apps to help you chillax for a moment before tackling the day.

Thanks to today’s technology we now live in a world where there are many applications and games designed to help you relieve stress and that’s what we’ll be looking at here. While these apps do help with stress relief it must be noted that that’s just it, it won’t completely make the sources of your stress go away and for severe cases, do consider getting some help or doing other activities that can help.

Buddha Board

Buddha Board is inspired by, you guessed it, Buddhist theology, specifically the Zen branch. The basis for Zen is that you must live life in the moment and let go of any past worries or anything that might hold you down (such as grudges and anger, etc). This is shown in great detail on this app, which lets you paint to your heart’s content on your phone, allowing you to let your creativity out and therefore, relieving your stress.

The trick is that one you finish your drawing it will vanish, thus “emptying” your mind of any worries and allowing you to let go while also appreciate the moment. It’s not something that will work for everyone and it’s probably recommended to take a picture of any awe-inspiring art you draw just in case. One problem however is that this game does not work as well for tablets so keep that in mind. Buddha Board is also available only for Apple devices on the App Store.

Pacifica

Pacifica is an app (available for both Apple and Android devices) that utilises Cognitive Therapy and it focuses on managing and controlling anxiety. It works in a very simple way – by allowing you to write or record what your daily activities will be and thus measuring what triggers stress and anxiety for each activity. This allows you to learn what exactly is causing you stress and hopefully work towards solving it. It also lets you set goals for yourself on how to manage your anxiety.

Breathe2Relax

Now, we have a simple question to ask. Are you breathing?

No seriously, it might shock you to learn that most people don’t actually know how to breathe correctly. There’s a reason why meditation exercises usually tell people to breathe deeply and hold the air in for a bit – ’cause many people are not breathing deeply enough.

Originally created by the Department of Defense’s Center for Telehealth and Technology to help soldiers learn breathing techniques to relieve stress, Breathe2Relax is an app that focuses on teaching you the great and wonderful secrets of Diaphragmatic Breathing (breathing from your stomach).

This breathing technique is one that has been proven to help in decreasing stress and relaxing the body as well. The app also offers other features such as a way to measure how stressed you feel and how that affects your breathing.

Breathe2Relax is (thankfully) available for both Apple and Android devices, so make sure to try it out and *inhale, exhale* learn how to breathe.

Self-Help Anxiety Management

Eeven if you’re able to identify what’s stressing you doesn’t mean anything if you can’t figure out how to deal with it. Thankfully, this app developed by The University of the West of England aims to help you develop ways in which you can combat what causes you anxiety. The best thing is that the app gives you actual advice and actions that you can follow as well as interactive activities to keep you on your toes. This app is also available for both Apple and Android devices.

Head Space

Head Space is considered as one of the best stress relieving apps, and it focuses on meditation. While meditation is one of the most helpful activities when it comes to relieving stress, it can also be a bit hard to know how to do it correctly. Do you just sit down and cross your legs? Or is there more of a process to it?

Well, this app aims to help teach you more about meditation by offering a series of meditation routines that you can try out. It also gamifies the experience by putting time limits in which you can do the meditation and as you try out new routines, you can also unlock more. You can even pay a subscription fee to unlock even more routines.

Once more, it has to be noted that these apps won’t completely get rid of your stress, but they’ll do a good job of alleviating it and making things easier for you. Remember, when it comes to health, it’s not such physical but also mental that we have to take care of.